LOS ANGELES—Ubisoft didn't do a great job hiding Assassin's Creed Odyssey ahead of this year's E3, thanks to a leaked promotional keychain of all things. But the game's developers at Ubisoft Quebec redeemed the company by hiding the bigger news: that this annual Assassin's Creed update actually feels ambitious.

Monday's Ubisoft press conference saw the company telling players to "live your Odyssey" starting October 5 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows PC. Before that announcement, Ubisoft was gracious enough to give us nearly an hour of hands-on time with a pre-release build. That much time wasn't enough to confirm all of the developer's lofty claims, but it was enough to see serious Witcher-like aspirations for the series' first true "open world RPG."